Rasmussen: Post-SCOTUS, no change in ObamaCare popularity

posted at 10:01 am on July 2, 2012 by Ed Morrissey

National Journal reports this morning that Barack Obama has a new chance to sell ObamaCare after the Supreme Court upheld it as constitutional, but that “wishful thinking” has gotten in their way. In their second chance to win a messaging war, Michael Hirsh argues, Obama and his team are snatching defeat from the jaws of victory:

With just over four months to go before the election, and Republicans ravening to make health care a frontline issue, the Obama campaign still appears to be pursuing a “wishful thinking” strategy. They are simply wishing that the Affordable Care Act, the president’s signature domestic achievement, would go away now that the Supreme Court has delivered what they hope is a “final answer,” to quote White House Chief of Staff Jacob Lew. “I don’t think the American people want to have this debate again,” Lew said on Fox News Sunday, reflecting the “let’s move on” approach reported by National Journal’s Major Garrett, among others.

But the Republican Party clearly does intend to have this debate, all the way into November, and Lew’s tepid talking-points are a warning sign that the White House is, yet again, surrendering the message war on a central issue that even Obama partisans admit was poorly marketed the first time around, before and after ACA was signed into law in 2010. …

The opportunity to resell ACA exists. As my former Newsweek colleague Geoffrey Cowley, one of the most astute health-care journalists in the country, points out, “polls consistently show that more Americans oppose the Affordable Care Act than support it–not because they’ve evaluated and rejected it but because they don’t understand it.”

All due respect, but that’s a kind of “wishful thinking” all its own. Voters remained highly engaged in the health-care debate, and the media coverage given to ObamaCare was both broad and favorable. People who opposed it were routinely dismissed in media reports as angry extremists. The problem in the popularity of ObamaCare is that people wanted reform, but not a huge new entitlement bureaucracy and top-down mandates that wipe out choice. Voters rightly don’t understand how that will somehow be any different than the entitlement programs already in place that are pushing the country toward a fiscal cliff, and at the same time ordering Americans for the first time to buy a private-sector product on the basis of taking breath.

That’s not likely to change, even with a Supreme Court imprimatur. Indeed, a new Rasmussen poll taken over the weekend shows no movement at all on ObamaCare’s popularity or the demand for repeal:

The U.S. Supreme Court declared that President Obama’s health care law is constitutional, but they were unable to make it popular.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 52% of Likely U.S. Voters favor repeal of the health care law, while 39% are opposed. That’s little changed from a week ago.Indeed, support for repeal has barely budged since the law was passed.

The latest numbers include 44% who Strongly Favor repeal and 30% who are Strongly Opposed to it.

The internals show that Obama and his team remain on the wrong end of the debate, at least in terms of public opinion. Both men and women favor repeal (58/34 and 46/43, respectively), and other core demographics don’t show enough support to help. Younger voters oppose repeal, but only 44/41, and more strongly favor repeal (34%) than strongly oppose it (32%), and the other two age demos have majorities favoring repeal, with 53% of seniors strongly favoring repeal. Only 50% of black voters oppose repeal, with 28% undecided. Even in the lowest income bracked, repeal wins a plurality, 39/31.

When the question gets tied to the economy, the numbers look almost as bad for ObamaCare. A strong plurality of 43/27 believe a repeal would boost the economy (and not for bad reasons, either), a view shared by both men (52/25) and women (35/28), with younger voters only narrowly believing otherwise (31/34). Independents tend to agree with the overall result, 39/28, although somewhat less strongly.

Small wonder, then, that Barack Obama’s chief of staff Jack Lew wants to change the subject:

“I don’t think the American people want to have this debate again,” said Lew about GOP efforts to repeal the health bill on “Fox News Sunday.” “I don’t think they want to be pulled back into decades of debate to get to where we are. We now have a law, the law is constitutional, we should implement it.”

A majority of voters disagree — and have ever since Obama and Democrats pushed the bill into law over their objections. That’s what elections are for.

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I really want to know the support/oppose repeal breakdown based on whether or not the respondent is already on a government program. In other words what is the level of support for repeal among those of us who will have to pay for this abomination vs. that of those who won’t have to do so.

Most people know (by now) that there’s not an unlimited amount of money out there to fund giant new programs. Anything new will be funded by income redistribution, and that’s poison to economic recovery. You take the money from people who know how to create jobs with it, and give to people who know how to lay on a couch.

Oh yeah, most people support *parts* of ObamaCare. Well, most people hated Saddam Hussein and support the establishment of democracy in Iraq. Does that mean most people really support the Iraq War?

Come to mention it funny how I never heard this line of reasoning about the public support for the Iraq War. Also funny how we hear nothing about the costs of ObamaCare but were deluged about the ‘cost in lives and treasure’ in Iraq all the time. OMG! Like the Iraq War totally cost a trillion dollars! Under Obama, all of a sudden trillion is pocket change; just the routine yearly deficit.
Journalistic malpractice.

All you need to know about what Obama thought on the tax ruling was heard on his weekly Saturday address– NOTHING. Not a single peep about the SC upholding his “greatest accomplishment”. While I disagree with Roberts, calling it a tax will destroy it.

It is funny to me that in four years the democrats have not found a way to explain this great benefit in a way that people will understand what a great benefit it is. They still have not found the person on their side who can explain it so that people will like it. YET IT HASN’T OCCURRED TO THEM THAT WE DO UNDERSTAND IT AND THAT IS WHY WE DON’T LIKE IT!

So far as Obamacare goes, Americans pretty much share the mood of the little kid in the old New Yorker cartoon: “I say it’s spinach, and I say the hell with it!” At this point, all the Washington/Chicago/New York Axis propaganda won’t convince anyone that’s it’s really arugula.

In the new poll, more than half of all registered voters – 53 percent – said they were more likely to vote for their member of Congress if he were running on a platform calling for repeal, up from 46 percent before the ruling.

I noticed that Public Broadcasting is doing its part and airing a “documentary” on how swell Canada and U.K.’s health systems are. I must note that it looked a bit dated but I’m sure the info was still good./

People need to really understand what Obamatax does to health care. It puts the federal government between patient and doctor, it guarantees that prices on policies and treatment continues to rise, and eventually ends up in rationing.

There is NO SUCH THING as “universal healthcare”. That’s just a nice way to say rationing system.

Our medical records are seized by government bureaucrats and mandated to contain such things as our BMI. And it’s not just that we’re taxed on “inactivity”. Our activity is viewed as taxable simply by being different than the government-approved method. IOW, if your policy is a catastrophic/high deductible model which doesn’t meet the government standard, you are taxable. There’s no way to bring prices down, no way to protect our privacy. John Roberts has sold out the very notion of Individual Liberty.

I don’t understand why young people can’t see the truth in all this, why they can’t wrap their minds around the fact that THEY are the ones who are holding the bag here.

We now have a law, the law is constitutional, we should implement it.”

We now have a TAX that is the biggest TAX increase in the history of the world. It will create hundreds of new government bureaucracies, and require hiring tens of thousands of new IRS agents to enforce the new TAX. It will deprive Americans of the right to make their own choices in their own health care matters, it will increase state and federal taxes (with the majority of the tax burden falling on the shoulders of middle class workers who make less than $120k a year), and it will increase our yearly federal deficits by billions of dollars. And we should repeal it.

As my former Newsweek colleague Geoffrey Cowley, one of the most astute health-care journalists in the country, points out, ”polls consistently show that more Americans oppose the Affordable Care Act than support it–not because they’ve evaluated and rejected it but because they don’t understand it.”

Yeah sure, Geoffrey. Americans oppose Obamacare because they understand it all too well. Death Panels, anyone? It took Social Security eighty years to start bankrupting the Treasury; it will take Obamacare eight years, if that to do the same.

By the way, ISM manufacturing numbers just came out and printed sub-50. That means we are officially contracting in manufacturing. First time since 2009. So while the economy erodes, Obama places the largest tax burden on our backs. Obama! Obama! Obama!

He’s going to spend the next 5 months pretending it never happened. Which I suspect wikk look very strange to anyone who’s paying attention. The GOP of course will be be talking about it all the time. And I disagree with those who say the GOP needs to focus on the economy. They should be able to talk about health care and the economy simultaneously especially since they tie into each other. The health care bill needs to be another example of how the Obama administration has wrecked this economy.

By the way, ISM manufacturing numbers just came out and printed sub-50. That means we are officially contracting in manufacturing. First time since 2009. So while the economy erodes, Obama places the largest tax burden on our backs. Obama! Obama! Obama!

“I don’t think the American people want to have this debate again,” said Lew about GOP efforts to repeal the health bill on “Fox News Sunday.” “I don’t think they want to be pulled back into decades of debate to get to where we are. We now have a law, the law is constitutional, we should implement it.”

…who wants to debate the largest TAX INCREASE ever foisted on the middle class?
We have a lie…not a law to talk about!

Small wonder, then, that Barack Obama’s chief of staff Jack Lew wants to change the subject:

Fine with us Mr. Lew. How about we talk about the economy and the jobs your President promised while paying-off his liberal cronies in billions. No one cares about an extra 1-2 trillion dollar TAX INCREASE ON THE MIDDLE CLASS.

The opportunity to resell ACA exists. As my former Newsweek colleague Geoffrey Cowley, one of the most astute health-care journalists in the country, points out, ”polls consistently show that more Americans oppose the Affordable Care Act than support it–not because they’ve evaluated and rejected it but because they don’t understand it.”

With just over four months to go before the election, and Republicans ravening to make health care a frontline issue, the Obama campaign still appears to be pursuing a “wishful thinking” strategy. They are simply wishing that the Affordable Care Act, the president’s signature domestic achievement, would go away now that the Supreme Court has delivered what they hope is a “final answer,” to quote White House Chief of Staff Jacob Lew. “I don’t think the American people want to have this debate again,” Lew said on Fox News Sunday, reflecting the “let’s move on” approach reported by National Journal’s Major Garrett, among others.

But the Republican Party clearly does intend to have this debate, all the way into November, and Lew’s tepid talking-points are a warning sign that the White House is, yet again, surrendering the message war on a central issue that even Obama partisans admit was poorly marketed the first time around, before and after ACA was signed into law in 2010. …

The opportunity to resell ACA exists. As my former Newsweek colleague Geoffrey Cowley, one of the most astute health-care journalists in the country, points out, ”polls consistently show that more Americans oppose the Affordable Care Act than support it–not because they’ve evaluated and rejected it but because they don’t understand it.”

Most people DO NOT WANT to lose there PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE. It’s just that simple. When this law is fully implemented, the majority of the middle class (>90%) will lose there private insurance for government controlled, rationed, Katherine Sibelius determines health care. You are not going to be able to sell this any other way, after all, this law was passed on a lie anyway.

liberals: pretending the 2010 election never happened and that ObamaCare passed to accolades instead of being passed by Congressional tricks and arcana, kickbacks to states to buy off senators and lies throughout the whole process about what it would and would not do, was written in large part by lobbyists and no actually read before it was passed.

I think the other thing about ObamaTax that Americans should be educated about is what it will do to our privacy. Liberals act so outraged at the Patriot Act because someone might be able to find out what books you check out at the library. How about having the government know EVERYTHING about you?

I noticed that Public Broadcasting is doing its part and airing a “documentary” on how swell Canada and U.K.’s health systems are. I must note that it looked a bit dated but I’m sure the info was still good./

National Journal reports this morning that Barack Obama has a new chance to sell ObamaCare after the Supreme Court upheld it as constitutional…

We are being spun to some extent on this court ruling, just as we are when a defendant in a criminal trial gets off and proclaims innocence.

Roberts’s court last week found that Obamacare was ‘not-unconstitutional on the grounds of the case in question’. It didn’t find that Obamacare was simply ‘constitutional’, not by a long shot.

There are other suits against Obamacare in the works, and Obamacare could still be found unconstitutional on the grounds in those cases. It’s perfectly legitimate for anyone to think that Obamacare will be found unconstitutional because of those cases, aside from simply disagreeing with what happened last week.

If enough states join the 7 that have already received Obamacare waivers and refuse to set up the insurance exchanges or expand Medicare, the idiot states will be swamped with the unmanageable burden.

And now that Obamacare is a tax law, HHS Secretary Sebelius can’t raise the mandatepenalty tax penalty to make up for the lost revenues from or Obamacare financing by the states. Taxes can only be raised by Congress, through bills originating in the House.

This thing can’t be paid for and the Feds are getting no more financing for it. Under-feed it and overwhelm it and make it collapse. Exactly the sort of thing Cloward-Piven used to preach. Turn their own tactics against them using C-P, like Breitbart did using Alinsky.

I noticed that Public Broadcasting is doing its part and airing a “documentary” on how swell Canada and U.K.’s health systems are. I must note that it looked a bit dated but I’m sure the info was still good./

Cindy Munford on July 2, 2012 at 10:22 AM

Easiest way to refudiate that propaganda is to show the low-information voter the survival rates for various health problems like breast cancer, prostate cancer, etc, between the socialist country and USA. The differences in some of those numbers are startling.

liberals: pretending the 2010 election never happened and that ObamaCare passed to accolades instead of being passed by Congressional tricks and arcana, kickbacks to states to buy off senators and lies throughout the whole process about what it would and would not do, was written in large part by lobbyists and no actually read before it was passed.

1. It contains death panels but everyone has to die sometime.
2. It contains a large Tax increase but it’s the governments money anyway and they don’t want us to have as much.
3. It contains a myriad of government agencies. What have you got against full employment (welfare scheme) for those Ivy-League liberal arts graduates.
4. It takes away another degree of freedom for the common joe. No biggie we evolved to be ruled over.

“I don’t think the American people want to have this debate again,” said Lew

Again? The American people never had a say in this debate the first time around. Republicans were excluded, shell bills we’re created, kickbacks were offered and accepted in a very public manner, and information provided to the CBO was fudged to get ‘acceptable results’. America’s first real input on this law happened during the 2010 elections. It’s time we had a national debate on this law. See you in November…

Because it is a regressive tax Obama hates the middle class and the poor. Basta. This is the message the right needs to pound into the stream. Plus, that it is a Tax. The SC said so, even if Roberts had to invent the language in the law, a stupic and unforgivable precedent.

The law was always doomed from the start, the major flaw being that most Americans already had coverage through either an insurance company or through Medicaid or Medicare and couldn’t be sure the law wouldn’t make things worse.

My personal problems with the law actually have nothing to do with the mandate or tax. It all comes down to this: “The Secretary shall . . .”

The ACA gives the Secretary of HHS the power to write hundreds of laws that will dictate how the health insurance industry operates moving forward. Considering the president’s preference for a single-payer system, that means the Obama administration, assuming it can make it to a second term, will use the ACA’s grant of nearly unlimited power to destroy the private insurance market in just a few years by putting a pretty major squeeze on health insurance companies.

I believe there should be a minimum standard of coverage for all citizens, but this law overreaches, is confusing, is too expensive, and ignores tort reform and other conservative ideas. The ACA is also indulgent of the president. When the country demanded fiscal responsibility, he went for socialism instead. Obama managed to get this terrible bill passed, but he missed a historic opportunity to with the Tea Party back in 2009-10 to tackle entitlements.

Our nation is already fully settled of entitlements, and awarding new entitlements necessarily means curbing or eliminating existing ones. If Obama had done a good, bipartisan healthcare bill in the context of real and substantial entitlement reform, he’d probably be coasting towards re-election right now.

“I don’t think the American people want to have this debate again,” said Lew about GOP efforts to repeal the health bill on “Fox News Sunday.” “I don’t think they want to be pulled back into decades of debate to get to where we are. We now have a law, the law is constitutional, we should implement it.”

Late to the party, but I just had to add:

Lew, you lying @$$! We didn’t have the debate in the first place! Your supermajority rammed this abortion of a bill through the Congress, in the dead of night, sans debate, sans any inputs from the American people

You’re right! We don’t want to have this debate again! We want to have it for the first time!

Lying, stinking statists. Just like little kids, “yeah I cheated, but I won, so lets just acknowledge my win and move on to the next game I can cheat at”